


The Seasons

by plainchelle



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety, Family is everything, M/M, vivaldi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-05
Updated: 2017-09-05
Packaged: 2018-12-24 03:22:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12003954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plainchelle/pseuds/plainchelle
Summary: Katsuki Yuuri is the ghost of Japanese figure skating. After shattering the previous junior national record, nobody has seen him skate competitively since."He skated to winter. To the snowballs he’d throw with his family. To losing himself in the simultaneous belonging and loneliness he inevitably felt every time they were too busy with the spa to play. To the snow angels that eventually melted. To the dedication and love his family showed him even when they didn’t understand him. Even when they knew nothing about skating or why he skated. He skated to winter. But he skated for his family."Currently: prologue





	The Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> Please listen to the music found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYWfJuMGMA). Thanks! I hope you guys like this. It's just the beginning, and the next 4 chapters are going to be significantly longer, but I had an idea for a story so I wanted to post it. Especially since I can finally start writing again. Yay!
> 
> If anyone can figure out which specific winter movement Yuuri skates to in the prologue, I'll be super happy.
> 
> No clue when the next chapter will be out. Hopefully in a couple weeks. My hope is to get about 10k words per chapter after the prologue.

**Japan’s Figure Skating Future?**  
  


Over the weekend, the Japan Skating Federation (JSF) held its annual Junior National Championships. Eligible young skaters between 13 and 19 competed for gold at the Shinyu Club in Nagano.  
  
Among the skaters was local favorite and member of Shinyu Skating Club, 16-year-old speed skater Minigori Haru, who won gold for the second year in a row. When asked about his future, Minigori replied, “Next year, I hope to compete in the senior division and keep improving my times.” Minigori’s coach said that while his times were a little slower than those of a senior skater, he would be able to make the jump from the junior to senior division quite comfortably.  
  
But most memorable perhaps was the junior men’s figure skating competition, in which first-time participant Katsuki Yuuri broke the junior national record by a whopping 10 points. The 15-year-old from Hasetsu wowed the audience with his short program performance to Vivaldi’s _Four Seasons_ and captivated their hearts with his free skate performance to a remixed and modernized version of the same song.  
  
Both his short program and his free skate broke the previous junior national records to result in an amazing combined score of 237.34. In comparison, silver medalist Goya Michio scored a combined total of 181.62.  
  
While eligible to compete in the junior championship program last year, it seems that Katsuki did not even enter the local qualifiers. Some people already speculate that he will jump immediately into the senior division next year.  
  
“His skating is awesome,” Goya told us in an interview. “I’m happy I got to watch him skate. I don’t feel bad for coming in second. He deserved every point he got. I kind of want him to go to the senior division just so he’ll have some competition, and so I can have a chance at winning next year. Is that bad to say?”  
  
Aki Kenji, figure skating competitor during the 1998 Winter Olympics, attended the event. He says that he likes to see how figure skating in the country has evolved even in the past 10 years. The junior competitions show the “promise of progress,” Aki told us. The skating of the caliber that Katsuki showed during the finals, Aki thinks is representative of Japan as the skating powerhouse he believes the country can be.  
  
“To see someone so young be so passionate in his skating is truly inspiring. Katsuki’s step sequences were like ballet on ice,” Aki said before comparing Katsuki to current world champion Russian skater Viktor Nikiforov. “Only [Nikiforov] has shown this much promise this early in his career. But I don’t think even he could’ve landed a triple axel as cleanly as Katsuki did in his free skate. Now, absolutely. But not at 15.”  
  
Katsuki was unable attend the medals ceremony due to a personal emergency, a JSF official told us. Neither Katsuki nor his coach were available for comment. For the full list of scores, see page 12C. The senior national skating competition is slated to begin next weekend in Tokyo.

 

\--

 

The stadium was huge, with enough seats for all the town to watch if they were here. But the people in the crowd were all faceless. He knew nobody. He didn’t know any of the other competitors as they walked around like they knew what they were doing. The only two people he could name were standing behind him, one holding his water bottle, the other patting him on the back.  
  
He was the last to skate after coming in first the day before. This would likely be his only chance; any nerves and anxiety he had, he swallowed down. Skating cost money. Competing cost even more money. As soon as they paid his entrance fee, he swore that he would take advantage of every moment. They’d had a good year at the spa, but participating in competitions, especially national ones would kill their savings. So he worked hard with the two men behind him, developing two of the most technically difficult programs he’d ever skated in his life. If this was the only time he got to compete nationally, he’d make people remember him. Even if nobody in his family could see him, he’d make people remember him.  
  
It was bright and crisp, even when he took his glasses off, the air particularly cold. The hand patting him on the back moved to rub some warmth into his upper arms. He shivered, admitting to himself that he was nervous. He felt sick, even as he tried to squash his anxiety. He had no time or headspace for nerves. Not now.  
  
There was clapping. Loud, almost deafening applause as the skater before him left the ice and nearly collapsed into the kiss and cry. He couldn’t see the name of the skater on the scoreboard, his vision too blurry after passing his glasses to the man holding his water bottle. He couldn’t hear the score, clearly high from the gasps and cheers, as he leaned over to take off his skate guards. He didn’t care what the score was, to be honest. The other skaters didn’t matter.  
  
It was a rush to step onto the ice. Nothing could beat the feeling of belonging, of home that came from gliding around the rink. All the seasons could come and go, and the world with it, but it would remain beautifully frozen on the ice. All the picturesque postcards of little faceless children wrapped in red, skating on a frozen lake, telling the story of a moment stuck in time where everything was perfect. That’s what he thought of when he thought of ice skating. Of snapshots shown to the world of how the winter encapsulates the harmony between the harshness of nature and the beauty of humanity, enduring through temperatures that kill, risking their lives by stepping onto treacherous water with only a couple inches of solid ice between them and hypothermia. Of his breath suspended in air, a reminder that he’s alive. Of forcing his body to its limits with spins and leaps and jumps. Of finding a connection between the artificiality of a simulated season within an ice rink and the natural beauty of a body’s capabilities tested.  
  
[He skated to winter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oYWfJuMGMA). To the snowballs he’d throw with his family. To losing himself in the simultaneous belonging and loneliness he inevitably felt every time they were too busy with the spa to play. To the snow angels that eventually melted. To the dedication and love his family showed him even when they didn’t understand him. Even when they knew nothing about skating or why he skated. He skated to winter. But he skated for his family.  
  
The audience clapped when he finished, too. They roared. But he didn’t hear it. All he saw was the cellphone in his coach’s hand and the shifting look of concern. Nothing else mattered. The words heart attack and surgery washed over him, and all the nauseating panic he’d kept down came bubbling up so fast he had to sprint to the nearest trashcan.  
  
On the train ride home, sitting in between both his coaches, he spoke for the first time, “Please don’t tell anyone what happened.”  
  
The coach on his right turned to him. When he spoke, he had a thick accent and a cadence that indicated Japanese wasn’t his first language, or even his second. “What if they find out?”  
   
He shrugged, feeling every bit the little boy he was. “So be it,” he said. Only mere hours ago hoping people would remember him, remember his skating, remember his name. Now all Yuuri wished was to be consumed by anonymity. He wanted people to forget that he existed, wishing that he hadn’t cracked open a snow globe to show the country what he could do.  
  
This was the only competition he would skate in. Competing was expensive and they had medical bills to pay and a spa to run. Skating would be a hobby and a dream. It would never be his life.


End file.
